Before Sunset
by Sakuraraestar
Summary: A reimaging of 3x21


AN: A slight reimaging of 3x21 of TVD.

With a start, Caroline opened her eyes to see Alaric inches from her face.

"Have a good dream, then?" He asked, eyes dancing with malicious glee.

When she looked around, Caroline recognized she was still in the classroom that Alaric had previously tortured her in…..was torturing her.

Had the last 6 years been a dream? No, not a dream. It had been like watching yourself, an out-of-body experience or watching a TV show. A really bad TV show, especially the last 2 years. Plus Caroline hadn't just followed herself, she followed her friends and the Originals (which was weird).

"Oop, there she is," Alaric gleefully said as he cocked his head, "Now to determine her allegiance and your fate."

Caroline's head snapped up, Alaric must have called Elena, like in the dream. If events were happening just like the dream, Elena would momentarily incapacitate Alaric, and release Caroline from her bonds. Caroline would then flash away and meet Klaus.

Sure enough, Elena tried to get Alaric to let Caroline go. Elena even gave a look before vervaining Alaric and releasing her bonds. Instead of flashing away, Caroline grabbed Elena, bite her wrist, and placed it against Elena's mouth.

"I will break her neck if you make a move," Caroline said calmly, trying to channel the years from the dream torture.

"You're not going to do that," Alaric says confidently, "You're not going to kill your best friend."

"Your life is linked with hers, isn't it?" Caroline says causing Alaric to falter as Elena struggled against Caroline's grip.

"How do you know that?" Alaric hissed. Caroline shrugged, she wasn't even sure she could explain it.

"You would turn Elena just to get rid of me?" Alaric sneered.

"Maybe, maybe not. You gonna test that?" Caroline counters, "Leave and I won't, so you get to live. Leave the stake."

Alaric glares at Caroline for a moment before she tightens her grip on Elena's neck causing a whimper to escape. He flashes away just as Klaus reaches the door.

"What the hell, Caroline!?" Elena exclaims vaulting herself away from Caroline.

Caroline sighs, picks up the White Oak Stake and gives it to a bewildered Klaus.

"Before you came to 'rescue' me, Alaric compelled me to sleep and then gave me nightmares. In one of them, he accidentally let it go that his life was connected to yours. If you die, he dies," Caroline tried to explain.

"Uh, ok.," Elena said confusedly as Stefan and Damon flashed to the classroom.

"Where's Ric?" Damon asked, pulling Elena into a hug which she reciprocated.

"Caroline got him to leave," Klaus said, looking at Caroline strangely.

"What?! How?" Damon demanded, not believing that Caroline could accomplish that.

"The White Oak Stake won't work on him, his life is connected to Elena's. I threatened to turn Elena if he didn't leave," Caroline explained, tiredly. Alaric's mental and physical torture taking a toll on her.

Damon flashed to Caroline and threw her against the nearby wall before Klaus got a hand around his heart.

"I wouldn't do that, mate. Right now, Caroline has more knowledge about Alaric's weaknesses and how to kill him than you do. Alaric was in her head, giving her nightmares," Klaus said calmly before releasing Damon.

"What does he mean?" Stefan asked Caroline as he helped her up.

"He compelled me to sleep and then gave me nightmares. Basically predicted what would happen and it felt so real, like time was actually happening. When he brought me out, everything was eerily accurate to the nightmare," Caroline explained tiredly.

"And you decided to test this with Elena's life!?" Damon shouted, his Vamp face coming out.

"Just enough for him to believe it," Caroline shrugged.

"What would have happened if you hadn't, love," Klaus asked softly coming closer to Caroline. He had a feeling of what might have actually happened and if it did? What Caroline saw would be very interesting.

"You guys wouldn't have been able to desiccate Ric and it would have ended with Elena turning into a Vampire," Caroline said looking at Elena, "You might want to call Bonnie and inform her that desiccating Ric won't work."

Damon, Stefan, and Elena all shared looks of differing levels of disbelief.

"Let me guess, Caroline wasn't supposed to know about that?" Klaus asked, smirk present.

"Of course not, they don't trust me with anything until after it hurts me somehow," Caroline retorted, then to Klaus, "Can you take me home? I don't think I'll be able to make it on my own."

The love triangle gaped at Caroline as Klaus led her out of the building. They hadn't brought Caroline in on the plan but she'd known about it somehow. A couple minutes later, Caroline was at her house, it was weird to be back here. She shuffled through the door with Klaus following.

"Are you going to ask?" Caroline prompted as she got a couple blood bags. Klaus had been the only one who hadn't questioned her after hearing the reasons. Caroline was kinda surprised since she had basically confessed to trying to turn Elena.

"Ask what?" Klaus asked smirking.

"About what I saw. You were the only one who hadn't questioned how I knew about the connection. And you're being weirdly at ease with the situation which leads me to believe that you've seen my situation before," Caroline said pinning him with a look causing the smirk to become a fully fledged smile.

"I have, Kol caused something what you just did centuries ago. How long was it for you?"

"A little over 6 years," Caroline whispered putting down her blood bag.

"Something tells me you weren't telling all of what would have happened," Klaus said looking her straight in the eyes, Caroline squirmed.

So Caroline started telling him the dream version. Caroline could tell, she hoped anyway, that Klaus was taking this seriously. As Caroline got to when Klaus 'died', the sound of a car door shutting caused Caroline to go stock still. She distantly heard Klaus saying something but Caroline trained her eyes and ears on the side door as her living, breathing mother walked in.

"Mommy?" Caroline breathed fighting back tears as she flashed to hug her mother.

Liz yelped in surprise at the strength of Caroline's embrace, before it let up. Caroline had never ever hugged her like this before. They were incredibly awkward when trying to express themselves emotionally towards each other. It had gotten better once Caroline became a vampire, but still awkward.

"He made me think you were dead, for what felt like a year. I thought you died!" Caroline cried, clinging to Liz who hugged her just as fiercely.

Neither Forbes paid attention to Klaus as he flashed away. He needed to get his siblings together in order to take on the teacher.

* * *

Later, Caroline told Liz everything from the dream nightmare. Liz notified Carol that Alaric might out them to the Council. Liz then forced Caroline to go to bed, she'd been through enough today. They would talk more about the future after Caroline was rested.

But Caroline couldn't sleep, her mind was buzzing with the false memories. She was tempted to go talk more with Klaus but it was night now, Caroline didn't want to chance Alaric coming after her. Grabbing her phone, she looked for Klaus's contact but couldn't find it. They weren't 'friends' yet.

Chancing the number from the dream was the same number as now, Caroline dialed it.

"What?," Klaus all but barked.

"It worked," Caroline said, starting to freak out.

"...Caroline?" Klaus asked after a moment.

"Yeah," she replied, closing her eyes focusing on the phone call.

"You have my number from the dream?" Klaus asked, Caroline could hear movement in the background.

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep," Caroline explained, cringing at the flimsy excuse.

"I've called my siblings back, we should be able to take Alaric down," Klaus explained.

"What happens to Elena? Are you going to kill her to defeat Alaric?" Caroline asked, chewing on her thumb.

Klaus was silent.

"You can't kill her, it'd be like what happened in the dream and that really didn't turn out good," Caroline protested, inwardly hoping that would not happen.

Granted Caroline would be her sire and not Damon, there shouldn't be any Sire Bond to have to worry about. But Elena would probably still have issues with transitioning and Caroline did not want to live through another 'Race for the Cure'.

"We're not planning on it. While you would technically sire her, the outcome could still be very, very similar outcome," Klaus explained, echoing Caroline's thoughts enough that she laughed.

"Yeah, it'd be better but not by much," Caroline agreed, a weight starting to lift, "So what's going to happen to Ric?"

"We'll try to desiccate him before throwing him in the Tomb, Elijah's is getting the spell replaced," Klaus explained, "That way both will live."

The Tomb, where Katherine was supposed to be and where 26 vampires were imprisoned for almost 150 years. Caroline was stunned, it was perfect. Elena would live while Alaric was restrained. Damon couldn't use either as a legitimate reason to go against the Originals.

"Why are you being so helpful?" Caroline blurted out. This Klaus wasn't as besotted with her as the one from the dream, or he wasn't yet. Although that Klaus probably wouldn't go this far, he'd just of killed Elena with Caroline's blood in her system.

"Kol did something similar to what Alaric did to you but the time experienced was a roughly 1 year. When things started holding true, for the most part, to the dream the person went mad," Klaus explained, "I compelled all the details of the dream from her and through that we outsmarted Mikael."

"Who was the person?" Caroline couldn't help but ask.

"Mary Porter," Klaus explained, "She'd angered Kol in some way so he decided to torture her. Compelled her to sleep and then gave her dreams to think she wasn't. Kol was satisfied for about 5 minutes before waking her up."

"So 5 minutes for a year? So I was under for 30 minutes?" Caroline mumbled. She'd recognized the vampire, 'Crazy' Mary Porter had sired Rose who sired Katherine who sired Damon who sired Caroline. At least she knew how Kol had driven her crazy.

"Can a regular vampire do the same thing? Induce a, what would you call it? A premonition or vision of the future?" Caroline asked shuddering, "No one should go through that to peek into the future."

"Well, it seems that's a price of sorts," Klaus offered before quieting then, "I take it from your willingness to let me to escort you home, we are something?"

It took a moment for the redirect to filter through the fuzzy tiredness before Caroline snorted.

"We become, friends, of a sort," Caroline sighed, "I go from actively participating your demise to being more reluctant."

"What changes?" Klaus asked, curiosity evident in his voice.

"After you were tricked to believe you were dying, we spent the afternoon together. During an argument, you were snapped out of the mind trick. We sort of became tentative friends before you left Mystic Falls," Caroline said softly.

She hoped he wouldn't press the issue of him leaving. Caroline wasn't sure how this Klaus would take to knowing about his impending fatherhood.

"Now I know to not make that mistake," Klaus replied, Caroline could almost hear him smiling, "I'll see you in the morning, Caroline."

He ended the call before she could reply. Caroline looked at her phone for a couple moments before saving his contact and wondered what she just got herself into with Klaus.


End file.
